Five Surprising Things About Turkish Wine
Yes, Turkey makes wine! In fact, together with Georgia and Armenia, Turkey has one of the longest histories of winemaking. As far back as 1600 BC when the Hitites made wine for their religious ceremonies people have made wine in Turkey. Assyrians and later Christians also made wine for both religious and every day drinking purposes. In the late Ottoman period it was illegal for Muslims to imbibe or even make wine. Instead, many Muslims cultivated grapes they then sold to Greek and Armenian winemakers. However that all came to and end in the 1920s during the population exchange and many vineyards were abandoned.
Paradoxically, despite its long history Turkey is also one of the world’s newest winemaking countries. While a small handful of modern wineries date back to the 1930s and 40s, it has really been over the last 10 to 15 years that the Turkish wine industry has leapt forward in terms of technology and quality. There are now over 100 wineries dotted across the entire country working with both native Turkish and international grape varieties making all styles of wine.
So what should you know about Turkish wine? Well to begin with, there are some excellent wines here. The list of things to know is actually rather extensive so today I’ll cover only the top five interesting facts about Turkish wine.
1. There are over 1200 vitis vinifera grapes native to Turkey. While the vast majority of these grapes exist not in vineyards but in agricultural DNA banks, the immense number of recorded grapes show that Turkey is an important and bountiful source for wine 
grapes. The grapes in use deserve their own article but here we’ll mention a few of the most common white and black grapes.
White: Emir, Narince, Hasandede, and Bornova Misketi
Black: Boğazkere, Öküzgözü, Papazkarası, Kalecik Karası, and Çalkarası
2. Turkish wines are award winning. While not all Turkish wineries submit examples tointernational competitions, many do. Turkish wines have taken medals and honorable mentions from Decanter, VinItaly, International Wine Challenge, VinAlies Internationales, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, China Wine and Spirit Awards, Balkans International Wine Competition, and more.
3. Turkey was once one of the largest wine exporters in the world. In the late 19th century European vineyards and the wine industry were devastated by phylloxera. This tiny louse, native to North America, eats grapevine roots thereby destroying the entire plant. As the epidemic spread from country to country across Europe people ripped up and burned ancient ancestral vineyards in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of the disease.
One of the last European countries to be hit by phylloxera was Turkey. With Europe unable to provide wine to its denizens the Ottoman Empire stepped up and began exporting wine. While it was illegal for Muslims to make or drink wine, Christians were free to do both. At the height of its wine exporting, the Ottoman Empire was sending millions of liters to Europe.
4. There are no appellations in Turkey. You won’t find any AOCs, DOCGs, PDOs, or AVAs here. There are in fact a very limited number of laws regulating winemaking in Turkey. While the country has eight broad growing regions (Thrace, Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia, and Black Sea) there are no official geographic delineations. Nor does Turkey regulate what grapes can be vinified in a given region, what percentage of grapes have to be sourced from a region, what blends are allowed, what information (other than ABV content) must be included on labels, or really anything else.
5. There are several Turkish wine routes. While there are no appellations, groups of wineries have banded together to create wine routes. The wineries involved in these do not act like Austrian DACs in that they do not agree on what is typical for a region and make wine according to agreed upon regulations and standards. Rather, they have banded together to promote their regions and Turkish wine on business and tourism levels. If you visit Turkey you can travel the Trakya Bağ Rotası in Thrace or the Urla Bağ Yolu and the Güney Izmir Bağ Rotası in Izmir. 
Currently the Urla Bağ Yolu is the most developed and easiest to visit but we’re hoping to see more of these soon as wineries in others are starting to band together to make their own wine routes.
There is so much more to know about Turkish wine! But hopefully these few little tidbits have “wet” your appetite to try some! A number of wineries export so Turkish wine can be found (admittedly with some effort) in: USA, Canada, UK, Holland, Germany, Austria, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and more.